The road to Utopia is the road to Hell. — Communism and socialism are the opiates of the intelligentsia. — The left, in its eternal and futile quest for "equality", is more than willing to abolish liberty and sunder fraternity.

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Teachable Moments

Friend: Johnny shouldn’t play so rough with that cat, it will scratch him.

“Liberal” parent: Johnny is just exploring his boundaries.

Johnny: SCREAM!

“Liberal” parent: Bad kitty. Johnny didn’t mean to hurt you, he was just being himself.

Soon-to-be ex-friend: Kitty was just being herself — and defending herself.

EPISODE 2

Parent: Johnny, where are you going?

Johnny: Out.

Parent: What are you going to do?

Johnny: Nothing.

Parent: When will you be home?

Johnny: I don’t know.

“Liberal” parent: Well, have a good time. It’s important to explore your boundaries.

Parent who actually cares about Johnny: Your answers are unacceptable. You’re grounded until you are honest with me. I may not be able to keep you from getting in trouble, but I can at least warn you of some of the dangers you might face. You’ll hate me now, but you’ll thank me in the long run — and I want you to live long enough to become a parent and behave responsibly toward your children, as I’m doing.

“Liberal” voter: Because the city will be able to do good things for residents if the bonds are approved.

Friend: What has happened to your property taxes over the past 10 years?

“Liberal” voter: They’ve more than doubled.

Friend: Why do you suppose they’ve doubled?

“Liberal” voter: Beats me, I’m no accountant.

Friend: You don’t suppose they’ve more than doubled because of the bond issues that have been approved in the past 10 years?

“Liberal” voter: Could be, but think of all the great things the city has done.

Friend: For you?

“Liberal” voter: Not for me, but for the disadvantaged people of this city. There are affordable housing projects and subsidies, for example.

Soon-to-be ex-friend: Did you ever stop to think that do-good voting has lots of unintended consequences? Hasn’t housing become less affordable because of the taxes engendered by bond issues? Aren’t affordable-housing tracts high-crime areas? Don’t larger city payrolls soak up much of the revenues from bonds? Couldn’t you have made substantial charitable contributions if your taxes hadn’t more than doubled in the past 10 years? What about your own children and their college educations, which have become exorbitantly expensive? Do you value the welfare of strangers — which won’t be affect much by the city’s programs — over the welfare of your own children. Do you believe that poor people are incapable of working hard and saving money to afford better housing, just as you and your parents did, or do you believe that they should be taught dependency on government? In summary, do you ever think before you vote, or do you just vote to feel good about yourself?

EPISODE 4

Generic “liberal”: I hope the migrant caravan reaches the U.S. border and overwhelms the government’s efforts to stop it.

Friend: Why do you hope that?

Generic “liberal”: Well, for one thing, borders are arbitrary. Everyone has the right to go anywhere in the world in an effort to benefit himself or herself.

Friend: You don’t believe in the sovereignty of the United States and the duty of the government to defend the territory of the United States? You don’t believe that illegal immigrants (to call them what they are) place a burden on America’s social infrastructure, a burden that taxpayers must bear — most of whom never reap the supposed benefits of immigration? You don’t believe that immigrant hordes include a disproportionate number of criminals, many of whom have been known to commit violent crimes against U.S. citizens? You don’t believe that the effect of mass, low-skill immigration is to reduce the wages and employment prospects of the economically disadvantaged Americans about whom you care so much?

Generic “liberal”: Well, all I know is that people have a right to go anywhere in search of betterment.

Soon-to-be ex-friend: No, it’s the same. You think it’s different because you’re wealthy enough not to be bothered by somewhat higher taxes — unlike the residents of your city who are being squeezed out by higher taxes. You live and work in places where you’re unlikely to be a victim of a violent immigrant. Your high-paying won’t be jeopardized by an influx of illegal immigrants. You are just a hypocrite.

Comments & Correspondence

Now that this blog is in hiatus, I have closed comments on all posts. If you wish to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google’s e-mail service — all run together.

On Liberty and Libertarianism

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity. The governments in and of the United States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but most Americans are captives in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Who can restore liberty? Certainly not the self-proclaimed libertarians who are fixated on Mill's empty harm principle and align with the left on social norms. Traditional (i.e., Burkean) conservatism fosters the preservation and adherence of beneficial norms (e.g., the last six of the Ten Commandments). Thus, by necessity, the only true libertarianism is found in traditional conservatism. I am a traditional conservative, which makes me a libertarian -- a true one.

Notes about Usage

“State” (with a capital “S”) refers to one of the United States, and “States” refers to two or more of them. “State” and “States,” thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word “state” for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a “marriage” (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

The words “liberal”, “progressive”, and their variants are usually enclosed in quotation marks (sneer quotes) because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress. I sometimes italicize the words, just to reduce visual clutter.

I have reverted to the British style of punctuating in-line quotations, which I followed 40 years ago when I published a weekly newspaper. The British style is to enclose within quotation marks only (a) the punctuation that appears in quoted text or (b) the title of a work (e.g., a blog post) that is usually placed within quotation marks.

I have reverted because of the confusion and unsightliness caused by the American style. It calls for the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks, even if the periods and commas don’t occur in the quoted material or title. Also, if there is a question mark at the end of quoted material, it replaces the comma or period that might otherwise be placed there.

If I had continued to follow American style, I would have ended a sentence in a recent post with this:

What a hodge-podge. There’s no comma between the first two entries, and the sentence ends with an inappropriate question mark. With two titles ending in question marks, there was no way for me to avoid a series in which a comma is lacking. I could have avoided the sentence-ending question mark by recasting the list, but the items are listed chronologically, which is how they should be read.

This not only eliminates the hodge-podge, but is also more logical and accurate. All items are separated by commas, commas aren’t displaced by question marks, and the declarative sentence ends with a period instead of a question mark.